You have no items in your shopping cart.
Who says teenagers can’t change the world?
These whiz kids are tackling some of science’s biggest challenges, and inspiring us along the way.
Meet three young scientists who are changing the world:
Dasia Taylor (17)
Iowa, USA
Dasia was sitting in her AP Geography course when she found out that a leading cause of death in low-income countries was post-surgical infection -- often from routine surgical procedures.
She decided to do something about it. Inspired by Grey’s Anatomy, the seventeen-year-old invented surgical stitches that change color when a wound becomes infected. The secret ingredient: beet juice, a natural indicator that changes color when pH changes.
Dasia pays tribute to the fictional women who inspired her, sharing “I summoned the powers of Meredith Grey and Miranda Bailey as I was in my lab space. And I was like, ‘I can do hard things.’”
Gitanjali Rao (15)
Denver, USA
At just fifteen years old, Gitanjali Rao was selected as TIME’s first-ever ‘Kid of the Year’ in 2020 (from a field of more than 5,000 nominees!).
As a brilliant scientist with a passion for helping people, Gitanjali has followed her passion to invent new technologies across a range of fields, including an app that uses AI to identify cyberbullying and a device that can detect lead in drinking water.
“I don’t look like your typical scientist. Everything I see on TV is that it’s an older, usually white, man as a scientist.” Gitanjali shared in an interview. “So I really want to put out that message: If I can do it, you can do it, and anyone can do it.”
Fionn Ferreira (18)
West Cork, Ireland
18-year-old Fionn Ferreira is an Irish inventor and chemistry student, and was named the 2019 winner of the Google Science Fair.
Fionn’s winningidea: inventing a new way to remove microplastics from water. After spending a lot of his childhood kayaking with his dog, he noticed an increasing amount of plastic washing up along the Irish coastline.
So Fionn went to work, and came up with a new method (that combines oil and magnetite powder to create a natural ferrofluid mixture) to remove microplastics from water.
Celebrating Young Scientists
These young leaders show us exactly why investing in future scientists is smart and pays back the investment many times over.
They’re why Microscope.com is committed to making science exciting and accessible to students (and their teachers!), and why we’re always looking for ways to help bring the tools for good science into classrooms across the USA.
Tools like the OM118 Monocular Student Compound Microscope are perfect Back to School. They’re the best value available for classrooms today.
The best-selling monocular student microscope. Recommended for K-12, this is the perfect high power monocular starter scope to inspire the young scientists in your classroom, with 40x, 100x and 400x magnification.
Check out all of our Student Microscopes